


Open Ocean, Solid Earth

by cherryrayflo



Category: One Piece
Genre: M/M, Post-Timeskip, Sanji has night terrors, Slow Burn, Zoro's unintentionally romantic, oh look my headcanons are showing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-20
Updated: 2015-11-20
Packaged: 2018-05-02 13:01:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5249141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cherryrayflo/pseuds/cherryrayflo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sanji's past has a terrible way of clawing its way to the present. Zoro shows him that it's okay to keep fighting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Open Ocean, Solid Earth

**Author's Note:**

> How to hate yourself: Write second-person present-tense.  
> (This ended up being almost 6000 words which amazes me. Also I wrote it as self-therapy to deal with my own demons and gave myself a cavity in the mean time so please enjoy.)  
> *Thanks to vivi for the French translation edit*

You spent so long staring at the sun you’re not quite sure when you fell in love with the ocean.

He drives you up the wall, there’s no denying it. Some days it’s bad enough you wish you had been left in that little seaside town, strung up like a marionette, waiting for a puppeteer to play your strings. No matter where you go, he’s always there, radiating his quiet, sly, confidence from behind your shoulder. He watches you with the predatory smirk of a Sea King, analyzing, calculating your movements. 

His eyes are so deep it feels like you’re drowning under his dark gaze, gasping for air, gulping in never ending lungfuls of water instead. If you didn’t know any better, you’d think you could see the ocean he dreams so fervently about in the flecks of green and gold in endless blue and the way the sun shimmers against them. It’s hard to look away when he captures you in that burning gaze, dark and hungry and vicious. It intrigues you how he tames the wilderness in his eyes when he’s enraged. It’s a quiet anger, the kind that sits heavy on your soul and never leaves, no matter what you try. 

He’s mesmerizing when he’s angry, you’ve noticed. The seas in his eyes go dark, and the storms rage, capsizing anything or anyone foolish enough to get in his way. The fire in his soul flares up, carefully manipulated to turn the tides of battle in his favor. If a fight takes too long, though, he loses control of the flame and it explodes, transforming into a feral beast that’s been starved for years before being suddenly released from its confines. He’s graceful in his battles, though you’d never tell him that to his face. Well-placed kicks and perfectly timed maneuvers make it seems as if he’s dancing with his enemy, the waltz of death in which he is the lead.

Sometimes he stumbles when he dances. A miscalculation maybe, or simply a partner stronger than himself. Those are the battles it bothers you most to watch. His anger ebbs away in his distress, replaced by a desire to prove himself. Sometimes you see when he’s merely desperate to survive, when proving himself worthy no longer matters. You often wish to rush to his aide, to fight alongside him and show him that he’s nothing to prove. You want to show him that he’s enough, and there’s a whole crew beside him that supports him. But you know him, so you don’t dare make a move. You know he’ll get angry, that he’ll yell and scream and kick and fight you till there’s nothing left in him anymore.

“It’s my fight!” he’ll yell at you as he gets up in your face, practically nose to nose and seething venom from between his teeth.

“I had it! I didn’t need your help! I’m fine on my own!” he’ll shout as he brings his foot towards your jaw. Sometimes you’ll let him land a hit, because you know he needs it. (You don’t do it often, he’d be suspicious of you if you did.) The two of you will fight, burning frustration and stress and your fears out on each other until the crew pulls you apart and forces you calm down.

It tears him apart from the inside though, you can tell. He smokes more when he’s upset, although any bystander wouldn’t be able to tell the difference with the way there’s always a cigarette dangling from his thin lips as it is. Even if you’re not near him, you can always tell in the aftermath of his misery. He’ll let out soft curses under his breath when the filter sticks to his chapped skin and peels it away when he removes his comfort from his mouth. The way he sighs around puffs of released smoke are heavier, longer than normal, and you can practically hear the hollow ache in his chest through them.

When he cooks though, it’s as if there’s nothing else in the world to him. It’s captivating watching him work as he waltzes around the small ship’s galley. He practically floats through the air, hands in constant motion as if he’s the maestro of a world-renown orchestra, instead of the chef of a ragtag band of pirates chasing their dreams and trying to find their places in the world. He’s a natural talent, born for this and moulded into a force to be reckoned with through his years of training on the floating restaurant. There’s a lightness in his demeanor when he’s cooking, a joy that runs through his veins as deep and as obvious as the blood that pumps through his body.

He hums when he cooks, a gentle, nameless melody that feels as natural as breathing itself. A soft, barely-there smile graces his lips as he dices up meats and dumps them into a pot to prepare a meal for the crew. His eyes shimmer, as bright and open as the sky you sail beneath, and you can see the laughter in his heart when you look at him. You’ve taken to napping on the floor while he cooks some evenings, and although he always protests at first, he caves almost effortlessly and simply warns you to stay out of his way. Occasionally he’ll glance over at you when he thinks you’re asleep and smile fondly, and you can see the unnamed affection in his eyes that he hides when the two of you are around the others. (You’ll never tell him you’ve seen it, you can’t bear the thought of scaring him away.)

He looks so youthful watching out the galley window fondly as he rinses vegetables or washes the after-dinner dishes. Sometimes you’ll offer to help him. He’ll sigh and agree reluctantly, but you can tell his appreciation for the company in the way he stands closer than normal and the comfortable silence you work in. The pinks and oranges and purples that streak the sky at sunset wipe away the stress that shows on his face, making him look more like the unruly kid he really is. The shadows they cast on his face soften his features against expectation and give him an earthly glow that warms your guarded heart.

Sometimes he has nightmares and comes out to the deck for a midnight smoke. He’s got this serene beauty when cast in the glow of the stars and the reflection of the moon on the gentle waves of the sea. You can tell the severity of his dream by the tremble of his fingers when he lights up his cigarette. Sometimes it’s a small uneasiness that disappears as soon as he takes the first drag, but other times it’s as if his body is caught in the midst of a typhoon as he shakes violently, heaving sobs racking through his chest as the dam on his emotions shatters into dust and he falls apart in the silent emptiness of the night. If you listen close enough, you can occasionally make out muttered apologies scattered through broken sobs, and you wish with all your heart you could make things even just a tiny bit less lonely for him.

The first time you saw him break, you were awoken from a deep sleep where you had dreamt of schools of fish of all sizes and colors circling lazily about you while you floated aimlessly underneath the warm summer sun. As you rubbed the sleep from your eyes, your first intention had been to curse at him for waking you, but as your vision cleared and you came to focus on his presence, any spite you had for the cook died in your throat. His voice was rough as he tried to scream, or talk, or make any sound at all and he was doubled over, boneless and limp on the floor. Your eyes had widened then, and you stood slowly as not to frighten him. How long has this been happening? You wonder to yourself, but you know better than to ask him. You’re sure there’s a reason he’s been hiding this and if you’re completely honest with yourself, you can understand. While your nakama mean you no harm and give their undying loyalty, there are just some things in the world that are hard to share with others. (You’ve got a few of those things yourself, after all.)

He’s crying, and it’s surprisingly painful for you to see him like this. The man is proud, headstrong, and while he is also fairly foolish, he’d never let anyone know he was falling apart, resolving instead to deal with it on his own. His body is wracked with violent tremors, and he’s got a white-knuckle grip on the railing above him, as if loosening his fingers even the slightest would mean the end of his short existence. His shirt is open, the button on his pants is undone and his hair is completely disheveled as if he hurried to dress himself and escape, and through the open fabric you can see the claw marks against his chest, some raw enough to have started bleeding. (Your heart stops; it’s worse than you had expected.)

You announce your presence, quietly, just barely above a whisper, and he whips his head around to look at you through the widened eyes of a frightened, cornered animal. He’s swearing then, trying to scream, to make any noise above graveled whisper, telling you to go away, he’s fine, I’m fine, leave me alone. You ignore him and crouch down beside him, slowly, surely. He’s backing away, pushing at you at the same time you extend your arms towards him and he’s trying so hard to fight you off. It doesn’t work. You can’t bear to see him like this, the strong, confident cook that drives you insane isn’t supposed to be like this and it kills you inside. (You’ll look back on this moment and realize it’s the first time you ever consciously realized how in love you were. You’ll never tell him though, you know what it would do to his pride.)

He’s still fighting, trying to get you away, insisting he doesn’t need your help, he doesn’t need anyone’s help. He’ll be fine on his own, he always has. That’s what he’s repeating over and over as you wrap your arms around him and pull him to your chest. He stiffens against your torso, clearly not expecting such a gentle act from such an “idiotic, bull-headed marimo,” but you hold fast. One heartbeat, two, three, and four. Slowly he’s relaxing against you, the bawling reduced to quiet whimpers and his hands release their tension before he’s tentatively moving them to grip the front of your shirt. His breathing is slowly leveling itself out again, and you’re no longer sure who the whispered apologies are for, whether it be you or himself or his past. (Frankly, you don’t really care so long as he’s safe.)

After awhile, his grip on your shirt loosens and his hands drop, and you realize he’s fallen asleep in the warmth radiating from your broad chest. Quietly, you heft him into your arms and take him back to his bed. He grips your shirt again as you lay him down and whimpers softly, and as much as you wish to stay with him and hold him safely against you, you’re not sure how he would feel about that in the morning, so you resolve to pry your shirt from his fingers. Against your better judgement, you leave a gentle kiss against his temple and whisper a soft reassurance in his ear before you turn to leave and return to the deck. When you fall back asleep, you find your dreams have been invaded with cigarette smoke and stormy seas. 

He talks to you less than usual for three days after that. You understand though, and give him the space he craves. His relationship with you has always been based on silent appreciation, and neither of you have ever taken the initiative to say anything more than what needed to be. Not that’s it’s ever bothered you, that is. With a captain as rowdy as yours, a little silence is needed sometimes, and you’re almost positive you both realize that. His distance from you isn’t much more than the norm, and he stills spars with you and you can’t help but find a strange comfort in that.

The fourth night afterwards finds you cradling him against your body again. This time he fights less, and calms much quicker. Once again, he falls asleep in your arms and you return him to his bunk, leaving his side with a kiss and an assurance. When he wakes, you find him in the same state as before, making less effort than usual to talk to you but sharing his gratefulness in your silence by the way he gives a barely-there nod of thanks when no one else is nearby. The following days are a repetition of the first, but his quiet sentiment is not lost on you. This strange cycle continues for a seemingly timeless period of weeks, each time becoming a more intimate experience than the last as he becomes more welcoming to your attempts at comforting, to the point where he doesn’t bother to fight you anymore and leans into your embrace the moment you offer it. Moreover, the slight awkwardness in the days following his terrors begins to slowly ebb away until it becomes non-existent. It’s a slow change, but the trust between the two of you has gotten stronger as a result.

The months after his last attack find your dynamic back to normal, if not a little more intense. He’s still beyond frustrating to you, and you find it’s the worst when he’s swooning unceremoniously over every woman in sight. (You claim you have no idea why it bugs you so, but you know perfectly well why. You still find it easier to pretend you don’t.) It’s even more difficult when he looks at you with that softened gaze, his expression filled with the glint of an emotion you can’t place and the tiniest hint of a fond smile— an odd, but comforting thing much different from his usual smirk— playing softly at the edge of his lips. You see it best in his eyes when you’re head-to-head, snarling in each others faces and matching blow-for-blow as you burn your frustrations out on each other. It leaves a sharp pain between your ribs, an ache set deep into your bones that you’re not entirely sure feels all that unpleasant. You consider confronting him about it, but find yourself making excuses as to why you can’t.

When his next terror hits, you find yourself waking up to him shaking you roughly, whimpering in fear and gripping at your chest where your shirt should have been. (It had been a warm evening, so you had opted to sleep with it off.) Immediately you open your arms as he scrambles into them, sobbing softly against your sternum in a position best described as awkward and uncomfortable. You shift slightly as to give him more room for ease, but before he realizes what you’re doing, he jerks his head up and the look in his eyes suggests he’s afraid you’re leaving. It kills you to see him looking at you like that, so you still yourself and opt instead to pull his trembling form into your lap. He startles a bit, confused by your change in tactic, but slowly relaxes into the arms wrapped loosely around his waist as you rub gentle circles into his skin.

He’s quiet as he lies pressed against the warm expanse of your skin. The cold tears that had been hitting your chest as he wept have slowed drastically, and you’re sure his eyes must be burning with as tears as he had spilt. A particularly violent tremor jolts through his body and he whimpers as his still-trembling form pulls closer to you. It’s not entirely clear whether he does it to steal some of your over-abundant heat or in hoping that your solidity would help him regain his own, so you simply wrap your arms tighter around his torso to give him both, regardless. 

Minutes later, or maybe hours (time seems so irrelevant with him so close) you realize he’s fallen asleep as his fingertips slip slowly down your chest from where he left them pressed firmly to your heartbeat in some assurance to himself. You’re not entirely sure if he’s trying to verify that you’re really, truly alive or if he’s just anchoring himself back into the fabric of this reality, as if he’s a loose thread pulled from its place in the tapestry merely trying to fit back into the bigger picture. His complexion has a sickly pallor to it in the soft glow and your intuition is telling you he’s been eating less than usual, presumably in the attempt to avoid a breakdown or attack. You resolve yourself to watching over him the next few days to make sure he eats as he should. There’s no need for him to be weakened should a threat arise, you tell yourself, an excuse for the strange domesticity of your decision.

A quiet noise rouses you from your thoughts, and you realize that he’s mumbling about something in his sleep. He speaks so softly you have to strain to hear what he’s saying, but from the little bit you catch of it, it sounds as if he’s dreaming back at the Baratie, if the occasional snarl and “shitty geezer” hold any indication. You chuckle to yourself and brush a fallen strand of hair from his face. When you realize your action, your face burns with the unfamiliar tenderness of the gesture and you turn your head away, as if not facing him makes it easier to deal with the embarrassment. (You hope he didn’t feel it and vow solemnly to yourself to deny it if he brings it up later on. You’ll blame it on the breeze, regardless of the fact the air is still around you.)

You shift as best you can without waking him and slip your arms underneath his body to lift him and yourself off the deck of the Sunny. He shifts then, adjusting to your grip, and it’s accompanied by a slight shudder as a cool breeze wafts lazily across the deck. It’s as you’re descending the stairs to the lawn deck that he drifts slowly back into consciousness.

“Zoro?” He mumbles groggily, still fighting his way out of sleep. You’re taken aback by the way your name sounds on his lips and you find yourself very suddenly praying to a god you don’t even believe in that he didn't hear the hitch in your breath or the beat your heart skipped all on its own. You find yourself half-heartedly thinking that you’re going to have to find a way to train this out, though you know you probably won’t even bother to try past the simple thought of it. It seems the cook’s ridiculous love disease has spread and you’re both greatly discomforted and eased by the small weakness it makes you feel near him. (You hope this feeling won’t get in your way on your path to be the greatest swordsman, as you’re no fool to think this is a problem you can simply ignore till it passes.) 

You grunt an acknowledgement at him, trying to maintain control of yourself as he finally fully rouses from his short sleep. Stopping near the door to the boy’s cabin, you set him gently on his feet and start to take a step back when he reaches for your haramaki. Hooking his chilled fingers in the top of it, he whispers a quiet wait and you pause in your retreat, too afraid to turn around and face him lest he see the rose stain spread across your cheeks.

“Zor—Marimo,” he starts, correcting himself in an attempt to bring the two of you to neutral starting ground. “Come to the galley with me.” A glance over your shoulder shows he’s just as embarrassed as yourself, as the curtain of golden silk hangs where stares at the grass beneath your feet. You take a deep breath to calm your nerves, afraid you’ve crossed a line in your strange friendship with cook and he wants to talk about you backing the hell off. When you breathe out slowly through your nose, and in a voice so quiet and reserved you startle yourself, you agree. The slim fingers withdraw from your haramaki and he slips past you and up the steps to the galley door, where he pauses momentarily to shoot you a look before stepping inside. 

You wait a moment more while you steel yourself for the confrontation you’re sure to face before following his lead and joining him in his territory. He’s donned his apron and washing his hands as you step through the doorway, turning just long enough to note your presence before returning to the task of drying his hands. As you pull the door shut behind you, his voice rises from where he’s looking intently into one of his perfectly organized cabinets.

“Lock that please, if our dear shitty rubber captain catches whiff of me cooking the peace is fucked,” he hums, never turning away from his search. You’re taken aback by his strange request, and it causes you to bristle slightly, the slight notion of being caged in washes over you and your hand automatically twitches over Wado’s hilt. “Relax Marimo,” he chuckles quietly, causing you to inwardly curse yourself for forgetting about his haki, especially under the consideration that you share the same ability. He turns then, grinning at you as your hand hovers over the lock and tosses the towel in his hands over his shoulder. Leaning back against the counter, he matches your gaze and finishes his thought with, “if I were planning on beating your ass into the ground you’d have been there already.”

You squint your good eye at him before the the words sink in and you snap a defensive “oi!” at him. He laughs then, a real laugh instead of just the mocking tone he usually takes in your presence and it’s the most beautiful sound you’ve ever heard. It reminds you of the ocean, for some reason, and you can’t think of anything that suits him more. You swallow hard, confused and in awe of the way his voice winds its way around your heart and squeezes. Snapping the lock behind you, you simply throw a rude gesture his way and make your way to the elongated barstool opposite of the blonde, watching the way he follows your movements like a hawk. The thought crosses that you should probably be made uncomfortable by his stare, but instead you note it sears into your flesh like a brand and makes your heart race.

As you settle onto the seat and prop your swords by your side, the cook turns back to his kitchen and pulls ingredients from here and there, spreading them across the island in between the two of you. He works deftly, and you watch him work in a silence more comfortable than you were anticipating. Suddenly, you hear it, a melody so quiet you would have missed it if your hearing wasn’t nearly as acute as it it. He’s singing to himself, you realize, some soft melody in a language you’ve rarely heard. It’s his native tongue, and you’ve only heard it when he’s talks to himself. It flows beautifully from his lips and you find yourself staring, completely mesmerized by him entirely caught up in his element.

“Cook,” you mutter, reaching across to swipe a cherry from the small pile he’s set on the counter for the parfaits you recognize him putting together. He stops singing as he swats at your arm noncommittally as you pop the fruit into your mouth. You meet his one visible eye and you can see the flicker of fear cross briefly before he hums a soft note in reply. 

“You should sing louder. I can’t hear you like that.” You can see him bristle slightly before the burn across his cheeks gives away his embarrassment.

“You weren’t supposed to hear that, asshole,” he says quietly, setting down his knife as he finishes cutting the last of the fruit for your late night snacks.

“Why not? You’re good.” His cheeks flush darker and you note the almost inaudible stutter in his breath as the compliment slips from your thoughts before you can fully process what you’re saying. The realization dawns on you immediately thereafter and your drop your head in your palms with an undignified thud and a curse sighed to yourself. Your intuition alerts you to his hesitant reach, but you don’t move for fear of startling him. His hand retreats anyways, and you assume he’s changed his mind. Inhaling deeply, you’re caught off guard as he starts the song again, quiet and tentative at first but slowly gaining strength as he adds the final touches to the treats he’d been putting together for the two of you.

Your head snaps up and you let out the breath you’d been holding. He pushes the final product towards you with a spoon and you thank him with a silent nod, too afraid to make a sound lest he decide to stop. Slipping around to sit beside you on the bench, he continues to sing, quieter again but still loud enough you can hear him perfectly and it gives you unexpected chills that he’d do something so clearly intimate to him for you, of all the people in the world. You watch him through sidelong glances as he drifts away from the song in favor of his food, although he continues to hum around the spoon in his mouth.

The two of you sit in silence save for the cook’s gentle tune while you finish his creations. When you’ve both scraped the last of the dessert from your glasses, he takes the dishes to the sink and sets them down. You stand to assist him with drying, but he steps towards you and places his hand on your chest to stop you. The touch blooms a warmth in your chest and you can’t help but follow the length of his arm to his face, where he’s turned away to light a cigarette. He’s nervous, you think, narrowing your good eye the slightest bit as you notice the slight tremble in his fingers as he pulls away from your skin.

“Marimo,” he starts around a breath of smoke, “I’m not weak.” Your brows furrow and you recognize the slight spark of agitation that lights in your mind. You fight back the urge to start a brawl to prove that you know and instead force yourself to answer in a more civilized manner.

“Stop right there, Cook. I know you’re not weak. Do you really think I’d fight you so often if I thought you were? Do you think I’d even bother with you at all if you were weak?” you snarl, more aggressively than you actually intended and you can see him flinch involuntarily at your tone. So much for civil, you think humorlessly. A heavy sigh pulls from your lungs and you watch the ember of his cigarette flare as he sucks in a long pull of nicotine.

“You were carrying me to bed like a goddamn princess,” he shouts back, punctuating his sentence with a stream of smoke directly in your face. As often as he does it, the smoke doesn’t bother you like it once did but he still does it to “prove his point.” (At least, that’s what he claims it’s for.) Your patience with him is wearing thin very quickly and you stand to face him, arms crossed and stance grounded.

“You’re. Not. Weak,” you growl, a low guttural noise that you usually reserve for the heat of battle. “You’re broken, yeah. We all are. Every single person on this fucking ship has a past, and yeah, some had it worse than others. But you’re still here,” you lean towards him slightly, crossing into his personal space so he has nowhere to run and no way to ignore you. “I don’t know what you went through in your past, but I know you lived through it. I know that you’re right here, right now, pissing me off like you always do and even if you’re still fighting your demons, that doesn’t make you weak.” You hear his breath hitch and his eye widens slightly, and you know you’re getting through to him somehow.

“I was carrying you because I’m not a complete bastard as you so often like to claim. I wasn’t going to wake you because you need to stay rested just as much as the rest of us. We can’t have one of the so-called ‘Monster Trio’ falling asleep in the middle of kicking some shithead’s face in, now can we?” His eyes narrow and he blows another stream of smoke in your face when you smirk at him. He shoves against your chest slightly, mumbling a quiet fuck you at your boots in retaliation, but makes no other sign of moving away from where you’ve all but pinned him against the island. Your mind registers the closeness of his body to yours and fight yourself of the desire to pin him within the strength of your upper body and kiss him absolutely senseless.

“Sanji, look at me.” The cook’s head whirls around so fast you’re amazed he didn’t get whiplash. You’ve never once called him by name (at least not to his face), and you know he’s probably in shock that you’d ever say it at all. He opens his mouth to comment on it, but you shake your head slightly and he understands.

“You’re not weak. We started a goddamn war on the world government. We’re constantly being ambushed by Marines and other pirates alike. Our idiot of a captain has an uncanny ability to attract the worst kind of trouble no matter where we go. Hell, we’re the crew of the future Pirate King!” He snorts at that, and you’re glad to see the tremble in his fingers is gone again and they’re as steady as they’re meant to be. “You think Luffy would have let you stay if he didn’t think you were strong? Because I know he wouldn’t.” You see more than hear the deep breath he takes, and decide to push the envelope just a little further.

“Someone many years ago once told me ‘even the strongest of pirates cannot sail alone.’ So stop trying to, because you’ve got all of us behind you.” You pause, wary of finishing the thought out loud, but realize it’d be cowardly to back out now, and steel yourself for the kick you’re prepared to take.

“You’ve got me behind you, every step of the way.” You take a step out of his space to give him room to swing, but to your surprise, he doesn’t make a move. He just watches you, analyzing, waiting for you to laugh it off and call him pathetic or weak and bring him down. You meant every word you said to him though, and finally he seems to realize it. He doesn’t get angry or disgusted though, and suddenly you find yourself unprepared for whatever he plans to do next. He turns and snubs his cigarette in the ashtray you hadn’t even noticed him pull out before he turns back to get in your space the way you did to him.

“Look, Mar—“ he starts, but clearly not happy with it, he stops and takes a calming breath.

“Look, Zoro,” he tries again, clearly more satisfied with the tone he’s decided to set. Another deep breath as he leans in till the two of you are nose to nose and he’s sharing your air. 

“Je te déteste. Tout ce que tu fais me trouble. La manière dont tu marches, la manière dont tu parles, même la manière dont tu respires. Tu es toujours là, à me regarder de ton regard brûlant comme si tu analysais tous mes mouvements. Et au fil du temps tu t'es insinué dans ma poitrine et y es resté. Tu m'as fait tomber amoureux de toi dés le premier jour et maintenant que je sais que tu ressens la même chose, il faut que tu prennes tes responsabilités.”

You don’t know what he’s said but the immense desire to taste him blurs out your curiosity and you feel your control slip from your hands like twine. His visible eye is half shut and you catch the dart of his tongue from your peripheral vision as his licks his lips. Suddenly it hits you. He wants it too. All of your trepidation fails as you lean forward and close the remaining gap.

There is no hesitation when your lips touch his. All confusion and unanswered questions are clarified in the soft sigh against your movements and on what seems like instinct, you move to grasp his face tenderly between your calloused palms. The action is met with his fingers wrapping around your wrists and rubbing circles against your pulse and it just feels… perfect. Like all the arguing and pushing and fighting was meant to lead you to this exact moment in time, wrapped up him and everything he represents to you.

He tastes like smoke and sea and spices and you’re intoxicated by just how perfectly suited it is to him. His skins smells of salty spray and the tongue lapping gently against your lips reminds of you of the waves and you can’t help but let him in. You can feel the air burning out of your lungs, briefly reminding you of what it feels like to drown. He’s every bit an embodiment of the sea he loves so dearly and you’ve come to the conclusion you’ve fallen in love with the ocean. You kiss him deeply and languidly in a desperate attempt to express the feelings you can’t put in words till you’re desperate for air and have no choice but to break apart. You remain in his space and he remains in yours, each trying to find the right words to say.

Finally, the cook breaks the silence with a soft chuckle, his breath ghosting over your face like an unspoken promise. His eyes remain closed and he bumps his forehead against yours and you can’t help but grin widely at the sudden weight lifted from your shoulders. He starts again, to speak this time, to ask the question that hangs heavy between you, but you silence him with a kiss. You back him to the couch behind you and drag him down as you stretch yourself across it, mildly amused at how comfortable it is with his weight and his warmth spread across you like a blanket.

“Not tonight, Cook,” you mumble as he adjusts himself into a more comfortable position atop your chest. “We’ve got time to figure it out, there’s no need to worry about details tonight. Let’s just sleep tonight and we’ll go from there.” He’s quiet for a moment before he hums in reply, and it’s strange feeling the vibration in his chest against yours, but you find it’s certainly not unpleasant. Your mind drifts and your body grows heavy with sleep, and the last thing you remember before you fall into slumber is a feeling of serenity washing over you.

That night, you dream only of his ocean and a fire that burns from the soul.

**Author's Note:**

> Oh boy I haven't written this much in maybe forever? I don't know. It took me like three months just to get it finished so it's probably kinda rough right now but it's 3:40 am and I'm not proofing it tonight. This featured the following headcanons that I essentially live and breathe by:  
> -Sanji sings in French when he cooks  
> -Zoro's actually a huge fucking softie and hates seeing his nakama suffer  
> -THEY PINE AFTER EACH OTHER FOREVER BEFORE GETTING THEIR SHIT STRAIGHT  
> -When they get their shit straight, Sanji gets embarrassed and confesses in French cause he's big baby  
> -aaannnd they start the relationship pretty slow while they work out the kinks and then put kinks back in it (see what I did there? ;D)
> 
>  
> 
> OH AND TRANSLATION FOR SANJI'S CONFESSION:  
> \--"I loathe you. Everything you do gets under my skin. The way you walk, the way you talk, even the way you breathe. You’re always there, watching me with that burning look like you’re analyzing my every move. And somewhere along the line, you dug your way into the space behind my ribs and stuck there. You made me fall in love with you from the start and now that I know you feel the same, you have to take responsibility."


End file.
